First-In-The-Nation E-Discovery Law Passes Senate

A first-in-the-nation electronic discovery bill that would make the cast of Law & Order jealous passed the Colorado State Senate today on third reading in a 35-0 vote. The bill is sponsored by Senator Kent Lambert (R-Colorado Springs)

“Discovery” in legal proceedings concerns the exchange of evidence between prosecutors and defendants to ensure that both sides are working from the same information. This often requires pages and pages of documents printed at taxpayer expense.

In contrast, the “E-Discovery” process would digitize these documents and make them sharable via the internet – drastically cutting back on paper, wasteful retyping, and the cost associated with producing multiple copies of documents for all parties.

“Colorado is pioneering the use of E-Discovery with this bill,” said Senator Lambert. “E-Discovery will allow both sides in legal proceedings to save millions of dollars and the time wasted by paper documents. I’ve been fighting to make E-Discovery a reality in Colorado. I’m extremely proud of my colleagues for passing it through the Senate today and for the unanimous support from all sides of the judicial and legal community.”

The bill to establish an E-Discovery system (SB-190) will now go on to the House for consideration.